The impact of the recession on British businesses may well be permanent, and will certainly last until well into the next decade, the UK's union for bosses has declared.
The downturn has had four major impacts on UK firms, according to business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry.
British business does not expect …

COMMENTS

No wonder we are in a recession

With stupid thinking like "a large part time workforce", how can the average person live on part time hours? They can't, and given that a lot of firms expect to be your sole employer due to "confidentially clauses" all this will result in is

a) a ton of people on income support benefits

b) a ton of "agency workers" used (mostly from the land of curry and poppadoms) as "another skills shortage bites britain"

c) More jobs offshored as "no brits willing to apply" / "not economically viable to operate in the UK"

Frankly I'm glad I have the option to go elsewhere, unless something decent turns up soon, I think emigration is the only solution to working 5 part time mcjobs just to survive

No surprise there then...

Hes wrong.

Stors are starting to push store cards again. Banks are starting to offer ok loan rates and offers again. Shops and car makers are offering 0% again. We are getting back to where we were, but hopefully without the worst excesses.

I want to know how companys can claim to be ethical and the employ lots of temps. Ethical my arse. If you work like that your workforce will not feal secure and your company will go under.

With statements like...

Look for a second round of print & spend

They'll need to do more print and spend.

1. £150 billion printed money, was mostly used to buy government debt, so that means the debt couldn't be sold on as worth the price (even when other assets are not performing other nobody wanted UK govt debt!), yet the deficit spending continues.... hence they have to print the money for the deficits.

2. They were expecting (as I was) the last round of spending to create a bubble they could claim as recovery. (the GDP figure can't tell the difference between productive spending by industry and unproductive waste by government, they both make the GDP go positive). That bubble didn't happen.

3. There is an election coming. Labour needs to pretend it fixed the economy. This is the big white hope, that people will see a quarter of growth caused by govt throwing money at everything and be fooled, forgive them everything else and vote Labour.

So of course it's not over by Christmas, it isn't over, even when you get a quarter of growth. Because then they'll have to slash spending, and any growth will have to be greater than those cuts to appear to keep GDP positive.

Our economy is balanced that way

The issue here is the focus so much on the financial sector at the expense of everything else... As a country we put all our eggs into one basket and then get surprised when the whole thing goes under.

Other countries are out of recession now because their financial markets are less bloated and they haven't shot to hell all their manufacturing in favour of a service economy.

Lets balance the books please and stop focusing on the big financial players of the city of London, we are not a city state.

All happened before!

I remember the early 90’s recession. After that was supposedly over there were damaged companies going under for the following 10 years, IT pros having to change specialisation and job on a year by year basis, and the need to travel around the country to find good jobs. I suspect that this one will have damaged companies going under for the next 10 years, IT pros continually having to find new specialities, and travelling around Europe to find good jobs.

cheap credit gone for good?

It will only be gone as long as privately run banks like the Federal Reserve and Bank of England keep the cash flow tight, as soon as the government is mortgaged up to the hilt for the next 100 years we will start to see the next bubble get created.

1929, 2007.... 2100?

Central banks have been the enemies of everyone since biblical times. There is even a bit of historical evidence to suggest that Julius Caesar's murder was not just over his tyranny but also because he took control of the roman currency.

Same thing in the colonies in the 1700s, they used colonial scrip to pay each other for the exchange of goods. Bank of England didnt like scrip and insisted on Gold, revolution. The founding fathers are well quoted on their hatred of central banks. (There were also other factors involved).

google for the video 'the money masters' its explained in detail how all this works using sound economics. Make sure you have time to watch it though, 2 hours long.

temps...

"from the land of curry and poppadoms"

Burnley?

There are so many companies that start up just to get into shit loads of debt, go bankrupt on the friday then the same people behind it are starting up another company on the monday, completely debt free. It's wrong and immoral and should be illigal. Companies that are run poorly enough to go bankrupt should stay that way, and the people responsible should not be allowed to claim benefits, start another company or have any form of credit until all debts are paid off...

If that means they die, then that's their problem...Why should I take responsibility for other peoples stupid risks.

@My Alter Ego

Pretty much any CEO who fancied going on a take over spree of other companies (you might look at the various UK high street retail chains) by getting banks to lend them a big bag of cash.

Having bought said companies they then "rationalise" them into a bigger conglomerate (in theory) by flogging off the "non core" or "unproductive" parts. Or as they called it in the 1970s, asset stripping.

With interest rates relatively low and any kind of successful track record (or possibly just a very good PR operation) getting the money was easy. Bet wrong and you cannot repay the banks from the assets you acquired. So the whole operation goes down the pan.

Anyone you've heard of who has a very substantial fortune in business made a large part of that by using others poeple's money. Look up the words gearing, leverage and "junk bonds."

If they get it right it was a "Shrewd investment" if the don't its a "reckless gamble."

Behind every self-made man there is at least one banker, merchant or otherwise.

Cost of credit....

... has a strong correlation to risk.

The past 18 months of financial fuckaboutery has culled some of the risk from the markets, so the cost of credit is declining.

One thing is for sure: More legislation isn't going to help matters. Financial markets are still just markets, and (as a clever bugger said) when buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

Ethics?

What are the ethics of getting rid of permanent staff and using more casual staff that can be hired and fired with no protection/pension/sick pay?

Talk about double standards!

We seem to be going backwards when it comes to treating workers with any kind of respect. As long as the company recycles it's old coffee cups and makes the right noises about being a green employer and throwing the word "ethical" somewhere random in it's mission statement, we don't need to worry about the people working for the company.

@My Alter Ego

The f***ing greedy ones, that who! Ha ha!

"Duh, da money keep going up and up, let's just keep piling it on and we will keep getting da money! What can go wrong?!"

Well at some point someone needs to call in the debt to pay someone else, oh shit! Fred can't pay, now I can't pay Harry....there's a lesson here, but I'm not sure what it is. Stuff it, ask the government/world bank to bail us out, lie low for a few months then we'll start up again, no problem!

Didn't someone say WW1 would be over by Christmas?

Many people/businesses are assuming that where we were before the crunch is where we *want* to be. Now, I'll admit I don't know a great deal about economics. But not producing anything, and living on other people's money ain't good, right?